The Cockroach

Some four to five years ago, I became a victim of an Office Prank.

As they say, no good deed goes unpunished and I happened to be sitting in the wrong place at the wrong time when events unfolded (read: I was assigned to a desk so really had no choice in where I could be at the time).

The prank was not played on me but I became that victim who was falsely accused of orchestrating the dirty deed.

What a dirty deed it was: someone got wind that one of the attorney's (we'll call him 'Mg') was deathly afraid of cockroaches.  The next morning, lo and behold, a cockroach had mysteriously appeared on said attorney's chair.  It was almost as if he had crawled there to die...with a napkin in tow as his final resting place.

Right.

Being not particularly fearful of insects, alive or ded, I went into the attorney's office to remove the foul beast and trash it accordingly having tired of the screaming and antics.

The identity of The Mastermind to the Nefarious Cockroach Plot was never revealed but it was easiest at the time to scapegoat the one who so casually went in there and handled the roach with ease.

For the past four to five years, once in a while I will be 'reminded'/accused of setting up the trap and subsequently asked if I planned to place future roaches at various locations throughout the office.

I must note that there was one attorney in particular that swore that I did it.  I was convinced he was the culprit, so we have been tossing accusations back and forth.  Let us call him, 'Err'.

With Mg's final day with the firm on Friday, it was time to cook up a scheme.

As H1 said, "Let us say to Mg: You can finally say I really did give you a cockroach."

A farewell party with cupcakes, champagne and a toast to the memories was held on Wednesday afternoon.  H1 and I made sure we were in attendance but left the party early.

The mission was to deliver a cockroach of epic proportions, made from cardboard and a creative use of Google images to Mg's chair as a going away present.

H1 and I were rather proud of our project and I believe it was well-received upon discovery by Mg.  He found it amusing and laughed lots.

The best part of the whole situation though? We signed it, "We will miss you, even the cockroaches. - Err".